Stop Me (29 page)

“What’s wrong?” she asked as he got off.

“I’ll be right back.” He disappeared into the house, nudging past his parents, who were at the door to give them a final wave.

When he came back, his jaw was still set, but he seemed somehow relieved.

She lifted the mask on her helmet. “Where’d you go?”

“I had something to say to Tom.”

“Goodbye?” she teased.

“I told him he’d better not cheat on my sister again or he’d have me to answer to.”

Jasmine felt her eyebrows go up. “Did Susan hear you?”

“I don’t care if she did. I won’t allow him to continue treating her the way he has—or he’s going to suffer a little himself.”

Jasmine smiled. Romain’s family was worried about him. But he was healing.

He was finding his way back.

Jasmine put the disc Susan had given her into Romain’s DVD player while he was out baiting and lowering crawfish traps. Evidently, the season started in winter.

Because much of his food came from the swamp and not the small market where he purchased staples like flour and sugar, he had to take care of a few things before the day ended.

In any case, they’d already decided to wait until morning to head to New Orleans. There wasn’t any rush, at least for today. The lab was closed, so she couldn’t call and press them for information on the items she’d dropped off. Her appointment with the sketch artist wasn’t until the day after tomorrow. And, with Sergeant Kozlowski off for Christmas, she doubted she’d be able to get any information out of the police about the man she’d found in the Moreaus’ cellar. She had some research she wanted to do on Phillip, Dustin and Beverly Moreau and 173

Pearson Black, but she couldn’t knock on the doors of their friends and family on Christmas night. She could search the Internet for public records, but that wouldn’t take long, and morning would be soon enough. Which meant they’d be staying at Romain’s place another night.

Jasmine wasn’t sure how she felt about that, but she knew it would be safer than returning to the hotel—and a waste of money to get another room when they already had shelter.

A newscaster’s voice suddenly boomed out, and Jasmine jumped up to grab the remote and turn down the volume. Checking traps sounded like it might take a while, depending on how far away they were, but she wanted to be as quiet as possible, in case he was anywhere near the house. There was no point in letting Romain know she had this clip until she’d seen it and determined its value to her investigation.

The grainy picture had a superimposed red stripe at the bottom of the screen that read, Shocking Reversal In Moreau Trial. It showed people pouring out of a courthouse and trickling down several wide steps. Some were weeping, some were involved in heated conversations, others simply looked stunned; it was obvious that a tragedy had just occurred.

Jasmine could imagine what that moment must’ve felt like—the bitter disappointment of the prosecution, the elation and relief of the defense. The police had the culprit in custody. They’d recovered what appeared to be irrefutable proof.

And yet it didn’t matter.

Then she saw Romain, coming out of the courthouse, and froze the playback.

Thinner and wirier than he was now, he seemed haggard, almost gaunt. Jasmine could see the heartache in the hard lines of his face. The shadow of beard proved that he hadn’t thought about his appearance in several days. Susan was walking on his right, sporting a short, sassy haircut very different from her current long layers, looking just as upset as her brother. A trim man Jasmine took to be in his late forties walked on Romain’s left, wearing a dark blue jacket.

Huff? Had to be, Jasmine decided. His salt-and-pepper hair was cut in a short, military style, and he had the seasoned air of a man who’d seen everything—yet he was still rocked by the D.A.’s decision to drop the case.

Pushing the play button, Jasmine leaned closer to the TV, riveted as Huff took off his jacket. She caught a brief glimpse of the gun in his hip holster before the crowd closed in. Then the picture began to bounce as the cameraman jogged behind the reporter, trying to be the first to reach Romain.

“Mr. Fornier, what do you have to say about seeing the man who allegedly killed your daughter go free?” the young woman asked.

“Nothing. He has nothing to say,” Susan replied.

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Everyone ignored her as another reporter, this one a man, tried to crowd between them. “Mr. Fornier! Mr. Fornier! Do you still believe Francis Moreau murdered Adele?”

“Of course he murdered Adele,” Susan shouted.

Again, Romain didn’t answer. He stared at the press as if he wasn’t even seeing them. Then his gaze cut to Moreau, smiling and talking in front of some other cameras a few feet away. Because of the pandemonium, Jasmine could only catch bits and pieces of what he was saying, but she got the gist. “Justice would…in the end.”

A shot suddenly rang out and Moreau dropped. Everything happened so fast, it was difficult to tell who had done what.

Backing up, Jasmine played the scene again, keeping her eyes on Romain’s hand. He came down the steps, the reporter approached, Huff grabbed him by the elbow and tried to pull him away. There was a brief sighting of a hand with a gun, the blast, and then Huff and several others swarmed Romain and pushed him to the ground.

Replaying it again, frame by frame, Jasmine watched the hand come up a fraction of an inch at a time until she stopped it where the gun was about to go off.

Was it Romain’s hand? Or Huff’s?

She couldn’t tell. It was a tiny detail in a very large picture. She needed to take the clip to a video specialist, have it magnified to see if there were any distinguishing characteristics on that hand.

“Where’d you get this?”

Jasmine had been so absorbed in what she was doing she’d forgotten to worry about Romain. Still holding the remote, she turned to see him standing in the doorway between the kitchen and living room.

“Susan gave it to me.”

A muscle flexed in his cheek as he stared at the screen. “Don’t go digging around in my past,” he said. “What happened on those courthouse steps has nothing to do with your sister. Stick to what might help you find her.” She wanted to find the real Romain as much as she wanted to find Kimberly.

She couldn’t abandon this now. It mattered. She didn’t want to believe he could lose control to such a degree, regardless of circumstances. “Did you do it?” she asked.

“Leave it alone.”

She put the remote aside and stood up. “Tell me.”

“Of course I did it!” he snapped. “Who else would care that much?”

“Huff had access to that weapon, too.”

Romain’s hands were dripping. Grabbing a towel from the counter, he dried them. “I did it,” he said and stomped out.

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Jasmine replayed the segment once more. She told herself what he might or might not have done was none of her business. She was trying not to get too involved with him. But she couldn’t keep herself from following him out.

He sat on a stool in a small screened-in porch attached to the back of the house, taking oysters out of one bucket and tossing them into two others.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He tapped the shell of the oyster he’d just picked up and threw it into the bucket to his right.

“Are we not speaking?”

With a glance in her direction, he scowled. “I’m separating the live ones from the dead ones.”

“Knocking on the shell tells you that?”

“If they’re alive, they close up. The dead ones can’t be eaten.” She saw another stool near the periphery of the small lean-to and pulled it closer. The coat he’d lent her for the motorcycle ride was in the house, but she didn’t want to go back for it now. “What if the shell’s closed to begin with?” she asked, folding her arms against the cold.

“If it’s dead, it’ll be a clacker—it’ll make a different sound.” They sat without further conversation, with only his tapping and the clunk of each oyster hitting its respective bucket to break the silence. Jasmine thought Romain might ignore her indefinitely, but after several minutes, he surprised her. “I don’t remember actually pulling the trigger, okay?”

She watched several more shells move through his capable hands. “Will you tell me what you do remember?”

Head down, he kept working. “I remember wanting to do it. I remember seeing Huff’s gun and realizing how easy it’d be. Then people started screaming and several men, including Huff, forced me to the ground.”

“Have you seen that tape?”

He looked up at her. “Of course I have. Susan insisted I watch it a few hundred times.”

“She was there. She saw it all.”

“She was there, but I can’t imagine she saw anything very clearly. There was so much noise and confusion, so many people. I can’t even describe it to you, not the way it really was.” He shook his head, the expression in his eyes troubled. “It was unreal.”

“If you don’t remember pulling the trigger, why did you plead guilty?” Another shell hit the bucket. “Because I don’t remember not pulling the trigger. That day was mostly a painful blur. And I wanted to wipe that self-satisfied smile off Moreau’s face. Pam was gone so I didn’t have that to stop me. Adele was gone, too—because of him. I had nothing left to lose.” 176

“Have you taken that DVD to anyone who might be able to magnify it?” Finished with the oysters in the original bucket, he opened the back door to dump out the remaining water. “No. I didn’t see any reason to put Huff at risk. Then or now. He had a family, I didn’t. And whether or not I was the one who shot Moreau is merely a technicality. I wanted him dead.”

“Wanting to do something and actually doing it aren’t the same thing, Romain,” she said.

He loomed over her and his voice fell. “When the desire is that great, it’s close enough.”

Jasmine stood. “No, it’s not.”

“He’s gone and the world is better off because of it,” he said. “It’s over.” Jasmine wished he didn’t appeal to her the way he did, but it was all she could do not to touch his cheek, not to crave his kiss. Part of her didn’t care what he’d done, what he might do, whether or not she’d get hurt—and that made it a frightening compulsion. “But if Moreau was framed, Huff might’ve killed the wrong man…or caused you to do it. He might’ve been responsible for the real culprit going free.” She clutched his arm. “Let’s find out who did what, okay? Let me take this to a specialist and see if he can determine who fired that gun.” His eyes dropped briefly to her hand. “Why?” he demanded. “So we learn it was Huff. That’s not going to tell us who really killed Adele. It’s not a good use of time or money.”

She felt the warmth of his skin through his long-sleeved T-shirt and it seemed to burn her cold fingers—and start fires in other places, too. But she refused to succumb to that desire. “Are you sure it’s time and money you’re worried about?” He jerked away. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’m wondering if you’re afraid to know for sure, afraid to find out what you’re capable of.”

He glared at her. “Send it,” he said. Then he picked up one of the buckets and stalked past her. The outer door slammed shut behind him.

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It was miserably cold on the couch, but Jasmine couldn’t figure out why. She was still wrapped in the bedding Romain had given her, which had been warm enough when she’d fallen asleep. So why the sudden drop in temperature? Why the odd feeling that something was terribly wrong?

Turning onto her side, she tried to talk herself out of the foreboding that seeped beneath the blankets, chilling her to the bone. She was safe here. Few people even knew that Romain’s house existed, and those people were his friends. Besides, he wasn’t far away. He’d left his bedroom door open when he’d gone to bed—an obvious signal that she could join him if she wanted. As a matter of fact, she suspected he’d taken the bed hoping she would join him. But that was an invitation she made herself resist. She knew what would happen if she climbed in with him.

They couldn’t sleep together without touching, and they couldn’t touch without stripping off their clothes and falling into the same frenzy they’d enjoyed this morning. Their attraction was too strong.

Just listen to him breathe. He’s right there. He’s—

Suddenly, her heart leapt into her throat. That wasn’t Romain she could hear.

It was someone else. A stranger. Wait, not a complete stranger. The man who’d sent Kimberly’s bracelet.

How Jasmine knew it was him, she wasn’t sure, but in her mind’s eye she could see a window standing open, could see the curtains on either side stirring in the freezing night air. He’d cut the screen and crawled through. Now he was walking silently through the house. Familiarizing himself with the layout. Checking the exits.

Looking for someone.

Looking for her!

The hair on the back of Jasmine’s neck rose as she sensed him coming up behind her. He hated her, wanted to destroy her. He thought he’d given too much away.

What have you given away? her mind screamed. But there was no answer. Just cold, hard purpose. And she couldn’t even yell….

Jasmine tried to keep perfectly still. She wished she could disappear, make him believe the thick blankets on top of her had simply been tossed there the way she used to fool Kimberly when they were playing hide-and-seek.

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But there was no chance of that. He knew exactly where she was. He’d spotted her, followed her here.

There was nowhere to go, nothing to do but hold her breath and pray.

“You know me,” he murmured and her heart pumped with fear as she felt him rise up.

In an attempt to fend him off, Jasmine rolled over and lifted her hands to protect her upper body and face, but the knife was already on its way down. She cried out as it sank into her chest, so deep he couldn’t immediately pull it out. The pain was paralyzing, shocking, disabling. But that wasn’t the worst of it. He wasn’t satisfied with one thrust. He had to stab her again and again and again. She’d never sensed such ruthlessness, such raw savagery…ever.

Her blood ran warm, soaking her shirt. She curled up to block the blows and the knife glanced off the bone in her shoulder, landed in her neck and cut her windpipe, making it impossible to breathe. When she heard a gurgle and realized that the odd sound came from her own throat, she knew the struggle was over, knew her life was over.